


Forgive the delay

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Banshees, M/M, Minor Violence, Threats of Violence, Werewolf Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Scott McCall is eight years old, his human mother spirits him away from the long reach that his father has on the werewolf community in the Southwest. </p>
<p>Aside from full moon shifts and putting down his instinctive responsive, Scott barely thinks about his past. He has his friends to think of, a makeshift and diverse pack that's all his, and school to worry about, but his life is (mostly) normal.</p>
<p>Nine years after their move, when a part of Scott's nearly forgotten past comes to Beacon Hills, secrets are revealed, relationships are tested, and Scott and Stiles both realize that "normal" just isn't their thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgive the delay

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the scilesreversebang and [madsmurf93](madsmurf93.tumblr.com) whose gorgeous graphic and prompt for a universe where Scott is like a werewolf prince in the wings got me thinking about how that could work in the context of the very modern canon. I'm a sucker for all things urban fantasy and once the idea got hold of me, I couldn't let it go. 
> 
> A major and sincere set of thanks goes to [teamsciles](teamsciles.tumblr.com), [fleetsparrow](fleetsparrow.tumblr.com), and [welcometodelphi](welcometodelphi.tumblr.com) for their help shaping this up and to my followers for putting up with my whining. Seriously, I don't think I could have done this without them.
> 
> Art masterpost: link forthcoming

Half-asleep, Scott barely wakes when the truck his mom has been driving all night turns into a driveway. It’s early enough in the morning that the sun is only just dawning above them. He sniffs quietly with his eyes still closed, face turning towards the cracked window on the passenger's side of the car as he takes in the new and interesting scents that surround them.

Wherever they are now, it smells nothing like the compound. Nothing like his dad's territory. Instead of dry heat and an almost... lizardy quality to the air, Scott scents nothing but a cool, wet forest somewhere close by and a familiar musk that he has come to associate with wolves (shifters and otherwise). There's no fear, none of the rankness that his father's compound smells like every single day of the week.

Wherever they are, Scott thinks that it has to be a good place to smell like this.

The thought should scare Scott a little. Being so far away from everything that's familiar would be a shock to the average eight-year-old, but Scott isn't average. Not at all.

The passenger side door opens and then Scott's mom is there, smelling strongly of home and worry. She strokes the side of Scott's face with her fingertips and Scott turns into the touch, smiling a little when that light touch shifts to the back of his head and his mom gives his scalp a good scratch.

"You ready to go, pumpkin?" Scott's mom asks, speaking softly as she smiles down at him. "I know you're getting big, but if you're still sleepy I can carry you inside."  She holds out her arms for him the way she used to do when Scott was little and that sort of behavior was acceptable in his dad's eyes because he was a pup and not a real wolf yet.

Scott wants nothing more than to take his mom up on her offer, but before he can open his mouth to accept, he has a brief flashback to his father and what _he_ would say if he could see Scott's mom carrying him around like he was a baby.

 Shuddering slightly, Scott shakes his head and then tries to smile for his mom.

"S'okay," he mumbles, not quite meeting his mom's eyes as he unhooks the seat belt buckle. "I can walk. I'm not _that_ sleepy." When his mom steps out of the way, Scott wriggles out of their rental truck and drops to the ground.

Scott's eyes widen when he finally gets a good look at their new house and the sleepy town around them. Their new home doesn't look like much when Scott compares it to where they used to live, but it's all theirs and that's what matters.

That's what makes it special.

The other houses on the street are closed off and quiet in the early morning. All of them except for the house right next door.

As Scott and his mom look on, the front door of the house swings open with a clatter and a boy his age bursts out followed a moment later by an older woman with her hair pulled up in a ponytail. The boy takes one look at Scott and then races down the stairs and into the lawn between their houses before Scott even has time to blink.

"Good morning," the other boy shouts at the top of his lungs as he skids to a stop in front of where Scott's mom stands half in front him. He wiggles his fingers at Scott and then says, "Hi! I'm Stiles," at the same near-deafening volume that has several of the people in the closed up houses around them grumbling loudly enough for Scott to catch some of it.

Scott stays behind his mother, watching Stiles warily as the boy beams at him. This is... weird for him. Back at the compound, Scott didn't have many friends his age. The ones he did have were never this cheerful, always seeming subdued because they didn't want to damage their alpha's heir.

But Stiles is different.

He's human, one of the few that Scott has met beyond his mother and her family, and he's happy to see Scott. When Scott glances at him from around his mother's side, Stiles waves at him, cheerful in a way that Scott hasn't seen in a long time.

Scott's mom laughs quietly at Stiles' behavior and then she reaches back to rest the palm of one soft hand on top of Scott's head.

"Don't forget your manners, Scott," she says softly enough that Scott knows that it was meant for his shifter ears alone. "Say something to the nice boy instead of hiding behind me, sweetie."

Huffing, Scott ducks out from underneath his mom's hand and steps forward until he and Stiles are nearly toe-to-toe. He manages a smile for the human in front of him and Stiles beams at him in return, showing off a gap where one of his front teeth is missing.

"H-hi, Stiles," Scott says quietly. "I-I'm Scott," and Stiles' smile seems to get impossibly wider.

"Wanna hang out later? I've got really cool toys"

Scott glances up at his mom.

"Can I?"

When she nods, Stiles pumps his fist in excitement and then grabs Scott in a quick hug that makes him yelp in response. Stiles pulls away from Scott and then bounces on his heels.

"Dude! I have always wanted a best friend!"

That's news to Scott who blinks. "We're best friends now? How?"

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Because I said so? Duh. My mom says I'm good at reading people and you look like you'll be a good best friend."

"I've never had a best friend before," Scott says a second later when his silence starts to make Stiles' face scrunch up with a worried frown. Never had a friend at all thanks to his dad, Scott thinks, thankfully keeping the thought to himself. He smiles at Stiles. "It should be fun."

***

~NINE YEARS LATER~

****

Scott's attempts at eating a nice, quiet lunch end about five minutes into the period when Stiles dumps his knapsack on the table and nearly knocks Scott's lunch off of it.

"How can you say no to Jackson's party tonight?" Stiles says, nearly whining as he fixes Scott with a pouty-lipped frown that looks ridiculous. He doesn't wait for Scott to answer, instead stealing Scott's container of orange juice as the other teenager looks at him with a faint frown on his face. "I don't know how we got Jackson to invite us to this party, but we need to go. I can't have my datefriend ditch me at a time like this. It's only the party of the year."

Scott snatches his juice back and then drains the bottle with a few long swigs, dragging it out just because he kind of likes how easy it is to make Stiles mad at him over stuff like this.

"Datefriend?" he asks once he's done drinking. "Really?"

"It works for us," Stiles says with an overdone roll of his big brown eyes. "You'd think you'd be cool with that considering all the things Lydia and Harley call us when they want to." He pouts again, looking at Scott from underneath his eyelashes in a way that makes Scott's mouth feel uncomfortably dry as the wolf inside of him perks up at the sight. "You never take me anywhere special, Scotty."

Before Scott can fire back with a retort, the other two members of their little clique join them at their out of the way table.

Harley, like Scott and Stiles, dresses for function rather than fashion most of the time.

Spending time with Lydia though has changed how they all dress and the dark-skinned girl is wearing a black and red dress that Scott vaguely remembers the girls talking about a few weeks before. She looks nice and comfortable, familiar in a way that makes the lupine part of Scott's brain feel like howling. Beside her, Lydia looks like a million bucks in her green dress and Scott honest-to-god wants to preen at the thought of someone in his makeshift pack that's as across the board beautiful and terrifying as the banshee sitting down at the table across from Harley.

Harley makes a face at her tray of mushy school lunch and then sighs, pushing it away from her by the tips of her fingers.

"What'd you bring for lunch this time, carnivore?" Harley asks a second later, eyeing Scott's lunchbox eagerly.

Scott is gentle about pushing Harley's hands away.

"I told you," Scott says, grinning as Lydia makes a show of ignoring them all. "You want this stuff you need to bum a ride home with us after school so my mom can cook for you."

Harley huffs and then grins to show that she's not bothered. "I don't know how you eat so much meat without ending up sick," she murmurs as she watches Scott return to his food with a single-minded focus. "One of these days you're gonna have to tell me how you do it. It's so weird how you can eat all of that with no issues. If I so much as _look_ at a hamburger my doctor texts me about my cholesterol."

Lydia interjects before the subject can turn too close to Scott's so-called "weirdness" to be comfortable, slapping her own lunch down on the table with a frustrated sigh pushing soft red hair out of her face.

"Jackson needs to learn how to take a hint," Lydia snarls, speaking loudly enough that Jackson and his little group of bullies can hear her even from their table halfway across the cafeteria.. She tosses her hair over one shoulder and frowns tightly. "I like my ego stroked as much as the next girl, but this is getting ridiculous. I don't want any of this."

Above the faintly unwashed scents of their fellow students, Scott can smell Lydia's discomfort and her worry as clearly as if she wasn't wearing a lick of perfume. The sour scent, so far from the way that Lydia normally registers to Scott's senses, that Scott actually has to force himself to stay seated instead of leaping at Jackson and kicking his ass.

"You want me to talk to him?" A very soft growl rumbles through Scott's chest and out of his mouth before he can stop the sound in its tracks.

Harley and Stiles don't so much as look up from their respective lunches, but Lydia purses her lips in a frown.

"I can handle Jackson," she says quietly, so softly that neither of their friends can hear it.

And she could.

Out of the four members of their little group, out of the whole _school_ probably, Lydia is the only person at the school aside from the Hale cousins that is as strong as he is. If Jackson ever tried anything with her, she'd probably snap him in two without batting an eyelash or breaking a nail. She could probably wipe him off the map just by opening her mouth.

But she shouldn't have to.

The thought leaves Scott unsettled for longer than it should.

Stiles nudges the side of Scott's left leg with one foot, easily breaking him out of his trance.

"Hey," Stiles says, smiling as he pushes a small carton of milk across the table to Scott. "Want my milk?

Scott snorts, cracking up without meaning to at the unintentionally dirty quip. He and Stiles share a look while he's laughing and before he knows it, Stiles is laughing too. They only stop a few minutes later thanks to one very cutting glare from Lydia and a judicious application of Harley's pointy little fingers to Scott's ribs.

"Thanks," Scott says as he tears open the carton, smiling the way he always does when Stiles is nearby. He raises it to his lips and drinks deeply, expecting to taste the weirdly addictive taste of the school's overly sweetened chocolate milk. At first, the milk tastes almost exactly like Scott expects--

But then Scott tastes something bitter underneath the cloying sweetness and in moments, he can't breathe. He can barely think, can hardly move. But he definitely _can't_ breathe. Scott's throat closes up within heartbeats, shut tight despite the fact that Scott is a werewolf and only a handful of werewolves have allergies to dairy products.

He can't --

Stiles' frantic face enters his field of vision and he feels strong hands grip his shoulders.

"Oh my god, Scott!" His eyes are wide and filled with fear, the sort of look that no one wants to see on their boyfriend's face. He moves away from Scott, face turning towards the cafeteria's main exit. "I'll go get Nurse Hale."

"No, I'll do it. You stay here with Scott." Harley's voice reaches Scott's ears despite the deafening chaos of the cafeteria around them.

Lydia's face is the next one he sees and she none too gently pushes Stiles out of her way. She presses close to him, digging her sharp nails into his arm as she leans in enough that her glamour wavers and Scott can see the slit pupils of her pale green eyes.

If Scott could breathe, he would cry out from the not insignificant pain of Lydia's talons digging into his skin.

"The milk was laced with wolfsbane, Scott. I don't think it was a coincidence."

"Wolfsbane? What the hell--"

Lydia's eyes widen when she hears Stiles' voice from behind him, but before she can make whatever excuses that she can, Scott feels his world tilt on its axis as darkness floods his field of vision.

*

Scott wakes up in the nurse's office with his throat on fire and his stomach growling.

"Don't get up just yet, Scott," the school nurse Jennifer Hale says quietly, stepping around the curtain keeping his bed blocked off from the rest of the room. "You're still weak. We had to force you to expel the wolfsbane and that triggered a partial shift. You need to rest."

A partial shift.

Here.

At school.

Scott's throat tightens as panic hits him hard.

"Did Stiles --"

Jennifer's dark eyes soften and she reaches for Scott's arm.

"He saw some of it," she admits in a hushed tone. "Miss Martin is out there with him in the hallway. She's trying to calm him down."

Scott struggles to push himself up so that he's sitting and not laying down flat on his back. It takes some time and the nurse's gentle coaching, but eventually he manages to sit up.

"Could you -- could you send them in?" Scott asks in a subdued murmur. "I need to talk to them."

Jennifer inclines her head in a brief nod, a soft expression settling on her face. "Just call me if you need me, sweetheart."

*

The disinfectant-laden air in the nurse's offices is hell on Scott's sensitive nose, but he doesn't need his sense of smell to tell him what Stiles must be feeling when his boyfriend pushes aside the curtains with Lydia following close behind him.

Stiles' face is thunderous with anger --and, if Scott is reading him correctly, more than a little bit of fear.

"What the hell, Scott?" Stiles barks out. "What the hell was that? What the hell are you?"

Lydia's face twists with anger. She reaches out and grabs one of Stiles' shoulders in a grip that has to be painful. Her glamour falls, leaving her features sharpened with the unearthly beauty all banshees seem to have, and when her lips move, even Scott is hard pressed not to obey.

"Be quiet, Stiles," Lydia says, her lovely voice still fraught with emotion despite Scott being... mostly okay. "Keep your mouth shut until we're done. This isn't a joke." She sounds scared and looks it too. "Scott almost died today. I think that's more important than figuring out what you think he is."

Stiles flinches, looking for all the world like he's just been slapped.

"Lydia," Scott says. He feels his eyes widen when he realizes how hoarse his voice sounds to his ears. "Lydia, what's going on? What happened?"

Lydia doesn't answer Scott at first.

"Lydia?"

She jerks a little and then frowns as he glamour resettles and her features return to their usual, human loveliness. "Someone laced the school's milk supply with wolfsbane, Scott. I checked as much milk as I could get my hands on and it all smelled of wolfsbane."

Scott frowns. "Was it an assassination attempt? On me?"

Lydia's glamour snaps back into place by the time she finishes rolling her eyes at Scott. "Of course it was," she snaps. "The Hale cousins are the only werewolves in the school and they've been bringing their own lunches to school since we were in elementary. Everyone knows that, Scott."

"Who'd want to assassinate you?" Stiles asks, speaking up for the first time since Lydia had turned to look at him with her glamour down. His voice is quiet and seems filled with a wariness that makes Scott want to press against him. "You're-- You're _you_. Why would anyone want to kill you?"

"Um...," Scott looks up at Lydia quickly before glancing back at Stiles. "My dad is pretty important actually. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted me dead or something."

"I thought your dad was dead," Stiles says. "You never talk about him, Scott --"

Scott glances up at Lydia. "Give us some space, Lydia? Please?"

Scott doesn't have to ask. He could just tell her and Lydia, by virtue of her status as the closest thing he has to a bodyguard, would move aside without asking questions. But that's something Scott's dad would do and Scott just isn't like that.

Lydia huffs out an exasperated puff of air, rolling her eyes as she puts her hands on her hips. "What if whoever poisoned the milk tries to finish the job?"

"Then maybe you could see if the Hales noticed anything off about the milk," Scott suggests as tactfully as he can with Lydia looking at him with a faint frown on her lips. "If not, you can always get the kitchen staff to let you into the kitchen, right?"

Lydia's frown tightens for a brief moment before her face relaxes into a small, but sincere smile.

"You just don't want me to see you and Stiles bawling all over each other," she teases. "I can take a hint." She taps her long nails against Scott's knee and then, pauses. "Wait -- what should I tell Harley?"

"Food poisoning?" Stiles suggests.

Scott shakes his head, frowning. "No. Tell her I'll be fine and that I'll explain everything after school."

"Are you sure?" Lydia asks quietly.

Scott nods his head. "Yeah," he says in a voice that's just as quiet. "She's well -- Harley's pack. It's not like I'm telling the whole school or anything, but she's one of us."

*

Stiles waits a full five minutes after Lydia leaves the nurse's office before he climbs into the bed with Scott. He pushes Scott over, moving him until there's space enough on the bed for the both of them to fit without much space between them.

"So… You're a werewolf?" Stiles asks when he's managed to make himself comfortable on his side.

Scott sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. "Yup."

"And you've always been one? Even though werewolves aren't real..."

Shrugging, Scott looks up at where Stiles leans over him with his weight braced on one elbow. "As far as I can remember, yeah," Scott says.

Which is… mostly true. Scott doesn't have many clear memories of his earliest moments. Some of his childhood pre-Beacon Hills is little more than hazy associations with things like cacti and cats, brought to the forefront of his mind only when something triggers that recall.

So if there was a time when Scott wasn't a wolf, he doesn't know it.

"And dude, obviously we're real. You saw me shift," Scott says, nose scrunching up with a frown. "We just... keep to ourselves. Humans don't exactly know about us, but there are packs all over."

Stiles hums and raises one hand to pet Scott's stomach. "Like the Hales?"

"Yeah, they're werewolves too," Scott confirms, fighting against the urge to wiggle as Stiles' fingernails scratch his skin through his undershirt. "Although I think they have a few witches marrying into the family now. Last full moon, I noticed some border spells on the edge of the preserve that weren't there before."

Stiles' nose wrinkles. "Witches?"

"You're in bed with a werewolf," Scott points out with a huffing bit of laughter. "You don't need to sound so shocked about witches." He licks his lips. "There should be like four of them at this school alone."

Stiles' eyes widen for a split second before narrowing. "Like who," he asks. "Like Lydia? Is that why her face did that freaky thing?"

"I can't tell you anything about Lydia," Scott says, directing a rare frown Stiles' way. "If Lydia wants you to know, she'll tell you herself." Scott closes his eyes and then sighs, feeling the ache from his overtaxed body come to the forefront of his mind. "Ask me something else, Stiles. Please."

Silences stretches between them for a painfully long moment. Eventually, though, Stiles speaks.

"How important is your dad?"

Not exactly an easy subject, but it's safer than revealing secrets that aren't his. Scott can handle that.

Scott shrugs. "When I was little, he was the alpha in charge of the entire Southwest. There are other alphas with smaller bits of that territory, but the big power comes from the six alphas in charge." Scott starts to count on the fingers of his right hand. "I only know my dad and Talia Hale up here and I think I met the Southeastern alpha when I was a baby They're like royalty."

It's not quite the worst thing that Scott could say, but it makes Stiles laugh.

"So... What? You're like a werewolf prince or something?"

"Or something," Scott mutters. "I think I'm already an alpha -- you know, by birth -- but when he dies or steps down, I'm it." He frowns, mouth tightening at the thought. "I don't want to be next in line to anything. I just want to be normal --"

Scott pauses, frowning faintly. "Well... normal-ish."

"I guess you can't do that if your dad's a werewolf king," Stiles mumbles. "Is your mom --"

Scott starts shaking his head before Stiles even finishes speaking.

"No. God no. We'd still be in Santa Fe if she was like me," Scott blurts out.

"I'm getting the feeling that your dad's a jerk, then."

"Considering he's the first person we thought of that'd want me dead... yeah. He kinda is," Scott murmurs, thoughts falling briefly on the man that his mother loved at first.

Scott doesn't know the whole story, how his parents met at a hospital in Arizona, but he knows how it ended: with plenty of yelling and his dad threatening to kick his mom out of the compound before his mom took matters into her own hands and just... took him.  

"I doubt he wants me dead. If anything, he just wants me back." Scott tilts his head back against the pillows so that he can look into Stiles' dark eyes. "And that's not happening."

"Good," Stiles says with a sharp smile settling on his lips. "Because there's no way in hell that I'm moving with you to Santa Fe even if it does mean that I'd get to be a werewolf consort or whatever."

"Shut _up_ , Stiles." Scott says with an affectionate roll of his eyes.

*

Lydia and Harley don't come back to the nurse's office until the last bell rings.

"Well that was a waste," Lydia announces, a frown set firmly on her face once the door is shut behind her and Harley. At Scott's questioning glance, she shakes her head hard enough to rumple her vivid red curls. "Cora and Malia are lactose intolerant. They haven't had school milk since they were in preschool and they didn't even get a whiff of the milk today."

Scott frowns in return.

"And the kitchen --"

"Empty. Everyone there was a temp and it looked like they booked it the second the lunch rush was done. I've got a guy on it."

"A guy --" Scott says hesitantly. "Um, who?"

"Danny, of course," Lydia huffs, with a roll of her eyes. "Who else do you know that wouldn't ask questions about hacking into the school board's employee listings for me?"

" _Lydia_ \--"

Harley clears her throat, "Um, what's going on here?"

Stiles' right arm rockets into the air, waving around like he's in class and a teacher has asked a question that he knows the answer to. His body language is eager and open, practically screaming, "Pick me! Pick me!" as the everyone else in the room looks at him.

"Okay… um, sure. Go ahead, Stiles."

Lydia holds up one hand to forestall Stiles' rambling.

"Take this somewhere else, please. I need to talk to Scott alone." At Stiles' wide-eyed look,

Lydia snorts. "Alone as in 'not with you eavesdropping'. This is for his ears only for now."

Which means, that it can't possibly be something good. One look at Stiles is all it takes to get him in gear and Scott is left alone with Lydia -- or, as alone as one can get in the nurse's office with said nurse doing all possible to look unobtrusive.

"So?" Scott asks, resting his hands on his hips. "What's wrong now?"

The set of Lydia's mouth tightens up further and her fingers twitch towards the ever-present cellphone in her pocket. "We've been summoned. Talia Hale wants to see all of us out by the old distillery where we met her the last time."

"Us, what 'us'?" Scott asks, and then he gets it.

He chances a look back at where Stiles and Harley are speaking quietly off to the side and then scowls, teeth lengthening as he fights the urge to say something very unkind about the Hales when one of their clan is only a few feet away. "I'm not taking them there."

Jennifer clears her throat just loudly enough to catch their attention.

"My alpha won't hurt them," she says, refusing to meet Scott's eyes. "Or you, for that matter. But if you plan to discuss our kind with them, it makes sense that Talia wants them to be present for the meeting itself." She pauses, looking conflicted. "It's supposed to be an honor."

"An honor," Lydia repeats, one eyebrow arched as high as possible.

Jennifer nods. "Your whole pack was invited, that's an honor. Other alphas aren't even allowed to have their bodyguards with them at these meetings."

Scott glances at Lydia.

"When do we need to be there?"

"According to her text: The sooner, the better," Lydia says, voice sharpening as her glamour wavers. Her striking features loose the softness of humanity and gain something that reminds Scott that he's not the only predator in the room. "You don't keep someone like Talia Hale waiting."

"We're taking your car?" Scott asks.

Lydia inclines her head in a shallow nod. "Four people can't fit in Stiles' crappy jeep on a good day and at least my car has extras in it."

Scott shudders to think of all that the term "extras" entails. He considers asking, but no, no he really doesn't want to know about the kind of extras that Lydia would have hidden all over the expensive silver Mercedes that she's had for barely over a year.

"You think we'll need your extras?" Scott asks as he waves Stiles and Harley over, not really expecting an answer from Lydia.

Lydia shrugs.

"Probably not," she says evasively as the rest of their makeshift pack joins them. She gives Scott a _look_ , a pinched-up frown and sideways skip of her pale eyes that immediately makes Scott's hackles raise. Something's wrong, but Lydia's not exactly spilling. "But we're taking my car anyway."

*

Once outside the nurse's office, Lydia takes off at a pace that would leave a human winded. Scott can keep up just fine, but Stiles and Harley are quickly outpaced until Lydia deigns to slow down just outside the doors to the school. Looking over the emptying parking lot with a scowl on her face, she shakes her head.

"Something _is_ wrong," Lydia says before Scott can ask. "This whole thing has been... _weird_ , but Talia Hale wanting to see all of us right after someone tries to poison you is just --" Lydia trails off, eyes narrowing as she scowls. "Why does she want to see all of us? This smells like a trap, but I can't tell who's behind it."

Scott frowns.

"And we're still going?"

"I could be wrong," Lydia says, voice soft. "God, I hope I'm wrong. Either way, we need to go. Just in case--"

Stiles skids to a stop at their sides with Harley just behind him. Having caught only the end of their conversation, Stiles eyes Scott with a familiar frown settling on his face.

"What are you two talking about?" Stiles asks. "Is this about the werewolf thing? Because Harley and I don't care. Really, we don't. So you don't have to wipe our memories or anything."

Scott blinks at his boyfriend.

"Wipe your _what_?"

"Well, what else could you two be talking about?" Stiles asks, a smirk curving up his mouth as he shares a knowing look with Harley. "I've seen movies, Scotty. I know things."

Some of the tension eases back at that. Scott laughs and feels lighter for it. He slings one arm around Stiles' shoulders and hauls him in for a hug and a quick kiss. When he leans back, Stiles' dark eyes are crinkled up at the corners and smiling. The peacefulness of Stiles' expression makes Scott feel --

Well, it makes him feel plenty of things. Pleasure at making Stiles smile at him like that. Anxiety for the meeting ahead. Worry for Stiles, for his pack.

Scott clears his throat and then, turning so that he can look both Harley and Stiles in the eye, says, "How do you feel about meeting a proper alpha werewolf?" He ignores Lydia's muttered comments in favor of smiling at their friends, the other members of their pack, as Stiles and Harley gape at him with wide eyes and slack jaws.

"Well?"

Harley goggles at him a little, her heartbeat quickening in her chest as she looks at him. For a few seconds, as Scott looks into her dark brown eyes, he thinks that he sees fear there. But in a flash, it's gone and Harley smiles at him, the expression a little wobbly around the edges.

"Yeah," she says, speaking just barely above a whisper. "Let's do it."

Of course, Lydia can't let things go without a final quip. She brushes back her red hair and then smiles widely enough that Scott almost takes a step backwards to avoid the suddenly scalding look in her eyes.

"Scott, sweetie," Lydia all but coos, "Maybe you should mention how this is probably a trap...Or how the alpha werewolf might be mad at you for sharing secrets with humans." Her voice bleeds warmth, turning into something icy and sharp. "We're putting them in danger, Scott. This could be a trap. It's probably a trap. You don't take your pack into a trap."

"I'm not leaving Scott," Stiles says, stepping up and frowning at Lydia. "If it's a trap, then it's a trap, but I'm not going home while you guys could be out there getting hurt."

Harley crosses her arms over her chest and then straightens her spine.

"Same here," she says, spitting the words out as she glances back and forth between Lydia and Scott. "I've got pepper spray in my bag and god only knows what weird shit Stiles has in his jeep. We're not going anywhere without you."

Lydia hisses something nasty under her breath, but then sighs. "Whatever," she says, rolling her eyes. "Just try not to get in the way."

*

"I've only known about werewolves for a day and I'm going to be killed by three of them. This is so unfair."

Yeah, Scott has to admit, it's pretty unfair.

The meeting in the old distillery?

It's a trap.

Of _course_ it's a trap.

Thankfully, Lydia is currently too busy covering them to say, "I told you so", because she's never been more correct in her life.

The second that they make it into the distillery, all hell breaks loose. The alphas rush them -- two men that Scott has never seen before and Talia Hale's younger brother, Peter -- and easily, quickly manage to overwhelm them. With only a thin circle of Mountain Ash dust keeping the other werewolves back, Scott and his pack are quickly outpaced and easily outmatched.

"Did my dad send you? Scott asks Peter, lifting his voice to be heard over the sound of the two snarling werewolves beside him. "I don't want to be in his pack, Peter. I don't want to follow in his footsteps, so you can tell him that."

Peter's lips shift into a smirk.

"Your daddy's not doing much of anything now," Peter drawls. He gestures at the wolf beside him, a broad-shouldered guy that puts Scott in mind of the Hulk, and then his smile widens. "He and Ennis had a little _talk_ you see." Peter pauses so that Scott can take in the full meaning of his words, blue eyes gleaming in the dark. "Needless to say, your daddy doesn't care who takes over his pack right now -- But we do."

Scott has never liked his dad. Never.

Even his earliest memories of the man are tinged with some kind of dislike or fear and Scott can't remember the last time that he thought about the man that his mother had married without anything but disgust in his thoughts.

But that doesn't mean that he wanted the man dead.

"What --" Scott blurts out. "You killed him? Why?"

 Peter rolls his eyes. "He owns the only other piece of territory on the West Coast worth having. I wasn't going to kill my sister to get a territory of my own, Scott. I'm not a monster." Peter's smile returns and then widens. "Now tell your bodyguard to break the circle or else."

"Or else what?" Stiles mutters, quietly enough that a human wouldn't be able to hear it. In a room full of werewolves however, Stiles' words are as audible as if he had shouted them across an empty room.

Peter barely spares Stiles a second glance, turning the full force of his bright red gaze on Scott. "Doesn't your mother get off early today, Scott? It would be a shame if someone happened to run into her after work. I don't think she'd survive one of Ennis's little talks. Do you?"

It feels like Scott's heart stops beating, like he stops existing for real.

"M-my mom?" He stammers. "You can't -- You won't --"

"I can and I will. Do you really want to test me?” Peter smirks. “Tell the girl to break the circle, Scott."

Lydia hisses. "No," she snarls. "You can't make me do this, Scott. If I break the circle, we're all dead.

Scott shakes his head. "I know, Lydia. I know. We'll think of something."

"Think about your mother," Peter calls out, a mocking lilt to his voice. "Do you really want her and Ennis to meet?"

Scott shakes his head and shudders. "Lydia --"

Behind him, Stiles and Harley practically _reek_ of fear. It hurts, to smell their pack members so frightened and to know that they're not exactly being handed many options here. Scott winces, mouth opening in preparation to do something so ill-advised that Lydia might well kill him herself if Peter and his fellow alphas don't beat her to it.

"Peter, I --"

Lydia glances back at Scott, her glamour flickering on and off to show pointed teeth and the slit pupils of her pale green eyes. Harley's gasp sounds loud in the silence that follows, so loud, that Scott nearly misses Stiles' own show of shock at Lydia's fully unglamoured appearance as a banshee.

"Cover your ears," Lydia snaps at them. Her voice ratchets up with every syllable until Scott's head throbs from the volume as well as from the power in her voice.

Scott hesitates, pausing just long enough to look back at where Stiles and Harley are sitting with their backs pressed up against a rusty sink. When he meets Stiles' eyes, he forces himself to smile at his boyfriend.

"Go ahead," he says quietly. "Cover your ears. It'll help."

Not much, and not at all for him, but it'll have to be enough.

Scott touches the side of Lydia's left arm and gives her a hard look. "Try not to bring down the roof this time, Lydia."

She smiles, baring a mouth full of wickedly sharp teeth. "I'll do my best."

Lydia turns her back on Scott. She straightens her spine, squares her shoulders, and then --

Lydia screams loudly enough to shake the dusty rafters overhead and Scott's whole world goes sideways.

*

Lydia doesn't bring down the roof, but she does manage to bring down all four of the werewolves in the building. Even Scott isn't immune to the abuse on his sensitive eardrums.

At least he comes to before Peter and the others do, waking up in Stiles' lap while Harley and Lydia make quick work of drawing another circle of mountain ash around the other werewolves.

"Dude," Stiles says, smiling down at Scott. "You dropped like a rock when Lydia opened her mouth. If you weren't my boyfriend, it would've been _hilarious_." He cards his fingers through Scott's curly hair and then scratches his nails over his scalp. "You okay?"

Scott nods.

"Aside from feeling like my brain's about to leak out my ears? Yeah, I'm good."

Stiles gives up a scrunched up grin and ducks his head so that he can press their lips together in a quick kiss. "Good," Stiles says, "Because we called my dad, your mom, _and_ the Hales so things are about to get messy."

"And loud?" Scott asks.

"Well duh," Stiles says with a roll of his eyes. "That's why we need to get you up and walking. Imagine what'll happen if our parents walk in and see you like this." They both shudder at the thought and Stiles makes an effort to help Scott get up on his feet just in time for what seems like half the town to descend upon them.

Scott's mother reaches them at the same time that Talia Hale does.

There's a moment where the two women size each other up, where Scott worries that he's going to have to dive between them as tension crackles between them with an almost tangible presence. But then Talia smiles and inclines her head in a brief nod and the tension vanishes.

"Your son is something else, Melissa," Talia says, her smile softening as she watches Scott and his mother hug. "You did a good job raising an alpha that any pack would be happy to follow." It's high praise coming from someone like Talia who has raised her fair share of powerful and thoughtful alphas, and Scott grins as his mother's face takes on a deep flush at the compliment.

"I can't take all the credit for that," Melissa says graciously. "Scott's always been a good kid."

Stiles sidles up to Scott's side and slings one long arm around his shoulder in a brief hug. "You're gonna give him a big head if you keep talking like that," he says. "So... What're you going to do about Peter and his minions?"

A low growl rumbles through the air as Talia's lips peel back from her sharp teeth.

"I will take care of my brother," Talia says, the promise coming out harshly. "It's the least I can do after what he did to you and your family. Someone else will deal with Ennis and the other one."  She reaches out to clasp one strong hand over Scott's shoulder, fingers pressing into the muscle hard enough that it almost hurts. "I am sorry for what happened to your father. Peter will be punished for it. You have my word for it."

Melissa's mouth tightens with a frown. "They killed Rafael?"

Scott nods, hating the way that his mother's eyes fill with pain, and squeezes her in a firm, tight hug. "They wanted his pack."

"That's why they came here -- for you?" Melissa glances over at where Talia's emissaries are busy restraining a snarling, scowling Peter. "I'm glad you're all okay." She glances at Stiles, a smile returning to her face. "I see you're handling things pretty well for someone that didn't know about werewolves being real."

Stiles shrugs. "This wasn't so bad," he admits. "Imagine if we had to deal with this sort of thing every day."

*

Eventually, everything dies down and everyone goes their separate ways.

The Hales take custody of Peter, two shady-looking guys in leather take his friends away with them, and Lydia promises to make sure that Harley is okay getting home. Alone in front of that old distillery, Scott and Stiles reach for each other, grasping desperately at shaking fingers as though worried that the moment will end if they don't touch.

"Are you going to leave?" Stiles asks in a whisper.

Scott glances down at his boyfriend. "W-hat? _No_! I'm not leaving, Stiles. Why would I leave?"

Stiles' attempt at an innocent shrug falls flat. "I always figured you moved to Beacon Hills because of your dad. Now that he's well... not in the picture, I just thought you'd go take over his pack now."

"Hell no," Scott says, tone sharpening briefly before he forces it to soften. "I'm still in high school, Stiles.I can't run that pack and honestly, I don't want to. I want to stay here with you." He pauses to nudge Stiles with his elbow. "I'm sorry you won't get to be a werewolf consort or whatever it is you wanted to be..."

Stiles rolls his eyes and then nudges Scott right back. "That's what you think," he says with a wide grin. "Halloween's coming up isn't it? I'm sure I can figure something out."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Forgive The Delay - Graphic Art & Fanmix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249352) by [madsmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsmurf/pseuds/madsmurf)




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